William Campbell, Wick

From the Free Presbyterian Magazine Jan.1904, vol 8(9), p355-359.

The late William Campbell, Preacher, Wick.

It with deep regret that we record this month the decease of Mr William Campbell, missionary, which took place at the house of his daughter, 1 Glengarry Mansions, Inverness, on Wednesday morning, the 16th December. Mr. Campbell had attained the ripe age of 85 years, but up to within a month of his end was wonderfully fresh and vigorous and capable of conducting two or more Sabbath services. His last illness was short, and the news of his death came with quite a shock to his friends north and south. Mr. Campbell’s personality was one of more than ordinary strength and impressiveness, while his religious career was unique and valuable, so that a sketch of both will be of interest to our readers.

William Campbell was born in the parish of Dornoch, Sutherlandshire. His father was George Campbell, one of the old Gaelic schoolmasters that were such a useful institution in the Highlands in their day, and an eminent Christian. A very interesting description of George Campbell is to be found in Brown’s Annals of the Disruption. He is brought before the reader as a speaker at one of “ the men’s ” fellowship meetings on the Friday of a communion, and some of the particulars of his striking bearing and manner of address wrould not unfitly apply to his son, Mr. William Campbell. George Campbell finished a life of usefulness in the Lord’s vineyard in Scourie, Sutherlandshire, shortly before the Disruption of 1843. His eldest son was Mr. Walter Campbell, the godly and esteemed missionary in North Uist, who died there upwards of ten years ago. We regret we are unable to give any detailed particulars of the first spiritual experiences of the subject of this sketch, but that these were deep and marked his subsequent history amply proved.

Mr. Campbell, like many other Scottish Christians, was reticent; about private experience. All that we can particularly supply on this head is the passage of God’s word upon which he was first enabled to secure a footing for eternity, and his hearers will remember the echo of it in his preaching. It was this; the words of Christ in the fourth verse of the seventeenth chapter John, “I have glorified thee on the earth; I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do.” God glorified and the redemption of sinners secured by the finished work of Christ were two notes that often resounded through his discourses and prayers.

Mr. Campbell gave early promise of being an edifying public speaker at fellowship and other religious meetings, and was duly licensed as a missionary of the Free Church by the Presbytery of Dunkeld, in Perthshire, about the year 1849. Thereafter he did service for the Free Church in many parts of the Highlands. He was for ten years missionary in Lochalsh, Ross-shire, and also for a lengthened period in the district of StrathConon. Mr. Campbell was for several years annually sent to minister to the large bodies of Highlanders which gather during the summer fishing seasons at Peterhead and Fraserburgh, and in this way became widely known as an able missionary throughout all parts of the Highlands.

At this point we may introduce one of the distinguishing features in Mr. Campbell’s career, that marks him out from almost all his friends and fellow-labourers of recent years, and that is his early severance from the Free Church. This took place about 33 years ago—during the former controversy in regard to union with the U.P. Church. Mr. Campbell, being a resolute defender of the ancient doctrines and principles of the Church of Scotland as founded upon and agreeable to God’s Word, was strongly opposed to the union movement, and did not hesitate to speak out in a bold and uncompromising manner against the proposed alliance with a body that was a standing opponent of national religion as well as the upholder of a subtle form of Arminianism. Mr. Campbell was not the man to mince matters when he took upon him to denounce men and things that were not in harmony with the faith, and so his outspoken utterances secured for him the strong disapprobation of the leaders in the Church who were favourable to union. The result eventually was that his name was removed from the list of Highland missionaries. Mr. Campbell was one of those persons who thought that even the faithful party ill the Church came to too easy a conclusion with the union party at the time of the cessation of negotiations, and as he got little sympathy from the ministers in general. Subsequent events, we doubt, have justified the despised Mr. Campbell’s attitude rather than that of many who were held in greater renown. Mr. Campbell now took up a separate position from the Free Church, while he still continued on friendly terms with those whom he esteemed faithful men within her pale, such as Dr. Moody Stuart, Professor Smeaton, and Dr. Kennedy, and went to hear them as opportunity afforded He held, however, separate meetings in various parts of the country, and went several years in succession to Peterhead and Fraserburgh, where his ministrations were largely attended by his former hearers from the Highlands, who preferred his able and edifying services to those of many ordained ministers who were considered eloquent preachers and were sent to these stations by the Church.

Mr. Campbell came at length to the town of Wick in the year 1881 at the invitation of the Gaelic mission, which held its meetings in the Pulteneytown Academy. This mission was originally connected with the Free Church, but had become dissevered from it, and so was open to receive the services of one in Mr. Campbell’s position. The writer well remembers some of Mr. Campbell’s first appearances in Pulteneytown Academy. The preacher held a Gaelic service in the forenoon and an English one in the afternoon. There was a good attendance at the forenoon service, for then there was a considerable number of Gaelic-speaking people in Wick, but the afternoon was still more largely attended, for a number of people came from the various surrounding churches to hear him. The figure of the preacher was most impressive — tall dark, well-proportioned, and of solemn countenance. His voice was clear, musical, and penetrating, his delivery appropriate and his utterances weighty. As he warmed with his subject, and especially as he began to denounce the errors of the day, his manner became most energetic and vehement, until it was clear to every hearer that a Boanerges had appeared among them, a faithful witness for Christ, who did not hesitate to “cry aloud and spare not,” to lift up his voice like a trumpet, and to show “ the house of Jacob their sins.” Some thought the language too unmeasured, and perhaps an expression here and there could stand modification, but the bold, uncompromising testimony was all needed, and it was much appreciated by not a few, who, while still retaining their connection with the Free Church, lamented and condemned the views and practices of the backsliding majority within her. Indeed, Mr. Campbell’s appearance in Wick was a source of great strength and comfort to such persons. They heard very little spiritual doctrine

of a soul-satisfying nature from the ordinary pulpit, and no testimony for truth as against error, while they got both in good measure from Mr. Campbell. The writer, then a boy, well recollects the impression made on his youthful mind. There was a reality and a power—yea, a newness—in the preaching that at once astonished and overawed him; the doctrine was rousing and searching, and the alarming exposures given of the evil movements of the day were quite a new revelation, nothing of the kind being heard from the Free Church pulpit. A quotation in this connection may be given from the diary of the late Mr. Wm. Sinclair, rope manufacturer, Wick, who was a worthy and zealous elder in the Free Church, and an attached friend of Mr. Campbell’s—“ Several of my family have gone to Mr, Campbell’s weekly prayer meeting, where the poor and needy ones expect to gather crumbs. Mr. Campbell has been preaching in the Academy over two years, Gaelic in the forenoon and English in the afternoon. He is an experienced Christian, and well fitted to edify and terrify. May the Holy One work through him! If ministers of Satan and graceless professors got their own way, he would be soon sent over the Ord, as one not fit to be left on earth. They cannot bear his plain faithfulness in testifying that their deeds are evil, and that they shall have to give an account at the great day for yielding to Satan and their own corrupt natures in swallowing greedily all sorts of deceitful innovations, while professing to worship in spirit and in truth. Eyes unsealed see these things to be the snares of the devil to deceive the bewitched, the blind leading the blind. For if they walk not according to the divine will, it is because there is no light in them.”

In 1893 Mr. Campbell was gratified at the testimony lifted up by the Rev. Messrs. Macfarlane and Macdonald and others against the well-known Declaratory Act and other defections in the Free Church, and shortly thereafter cast in his lot with them and the Free Presbyterian Church, of which he has died a missionary. In summing up our account of Mr. Campbell, we may notice one or two distinctive points about him. Though not an ordained minister, and commonly spoken of as a lay missionary, he was strictly speaking something between the two, and the best expression to describe him is “ a preacher of the gospel.” He was one of those men whom the Lord seems to endow with gifts and spiritual qualifications for the proclamation of His Word, apart from the regularly appointed channels. Mr. Campbell delivered his message with such ability and authority that many intelligent people took him to be a regularly equipped and ordained minister. His gifts of thought and utterance were considerably above the average, while his presence and bearing, it is no exaggeration to say, would have adorned any pulpit in the kingdom. Mr. Campbell’s preaching was specially fitted to be edifying to exercised hearers. He dwelt much on the work of the Spirit in conviction of sin, in uniting the soul to Christ, and in nourishing and supporting it during its wilderness journeyings and conflicts. His statements of doctrine and experience were almost invariably exact and well-balanced, and he delivered his message in a weighty and experimental manner. We knew of one excellent godly woman who had drunk in the Word under the eminent Rev. Archibald Cook, and continued to cherish his memory with the deepest regard, that said she got help through Mr. Campbell’s preaching that she didn’t get through Mr. Cook’s. Indeed, when Mr. Campbell came first to Wick, he had several of the choicest Christians in the North as his hearers, who deeply appreciated his services. Mr. Campbell was a faithful witness for Christ and His truth did not spare ministers for their unfaithfulness, and he boldly condemned all unscriptural innovations in worship and errors in doctrine. Many people thought he did nothing else than this, but they were mistaken. No doubt his English audience was more varied and promiscuous than his Gaelic one, and he reserved for it his severest exposures and denunciations. This may account for the comment of one of his godly hearers, who said that he was “sweeter ” in the Gaelic and sharper in the English. He did, however, valuable and lasting work in this field in his generation, and was the means, in the hands of God, of opening the eyes of not a few to see the evils of the time, and of leading them to make a clean and faithful stand on the side of truth. Latterly he did not deal so much with the denunciation of error, probably for this, among other reasons, that he was united to a Church whose testimony he was satisfied with, but he continued faithful and steadfast to the end in the faith which he so intensely loved and so long and powerfully preached. To strangers Mr. Campbell appeared stern and distant in manner, but in private he could be very free and affable. He had many reminiscences of the past that were interesting and instructive. In his early youth he heard several of the great Highland preachers, such as Mr. Kennedy, Redcastle, and Dr. Macdonald, while as ministers of later days he had special regard for the Rev. Archibald Cook, the Rev. John Macrae, “Macrath Mor,”and Dr. Kennedy, Dingwall. Perhaps the Rev. John Macrae was the minister of the Gospel whose preaching most touched his heart, while from some other points of view he might cherish even a greater esteem for Mr. Cook and Dr. Kennedy..

As stated at the beginning of our sketch, Mr. Campbell’s last illness was short, and his end unexpected. The Rev. John R. Mackay, who visited him during this time, observed a very sweet unction on his spirit, which bespoke “the latter rain” of divine influences, and a ripening for the society of heaven; and the aged veteran quoted with much animation the following passage of God’s Word as having come with special power to his soul:— “For he hath said, I will never leave thee nor forsake thee,” laying much emphasis on the words “For he hath said.” Though his breathing was oppressed, he suffered little or no pain. His end was peace. Thus passed from time to eternity, from earth to heaven, one who fought the good fight and faithfully served his generation, and whose memory and testimony will not soon be forgotten by his attached hearers and friends. “ There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God.”

J. S. S.

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Mr Campbell, although born in Dornoch in about 1818, came to Scourie as a young boy when his father was appointed the Gaelic Society teacher in the parish of Eddrachillis in 1821. His father remained in Scourie until his death. In the 1841 census William was no longer in Scourie and in the 1851 census he is recorded as visiting Corpach as a catechist, where he was staying with Rev Thomas Davidson, Free Church minister of Kilmallie.